It took Vid an entire day to piece together and organize his memories, and when he finally left the Room of Requirement, the sky had turned completely dark.
Although the Room of Requirement and the Ravenclaw Common Room are both on high floors, one is in the main tower and the other at the top of the Ravenclaw Tower. The distance between them is quite lengthy. Normally, Vid would summon his broom with a Summoning Charm and fly over, but today, he strolled slowly along the corridors, organizing his thoughts and figuring out what he needed to do next.
The echo of footsteps reverberated in the long corridors. Suddenly, a voice broke the silence—
"Haha... Surpri—se!"
Peeves appeared out of nowhere, hurling a few black water balloons at Vid. Vid quickly drew his magic wand and pointed it, causing the ink to return back, splattering all over Peeves' face.
"Pfft, pfft pfft pfft pfft!"
Peeves spat out the ink from his mouth and cursed begrudgingly, flying away as the corridor was left in the dark with black ink.
Vid was already very familiar with the Scouring Charm. He waved his magic wand a few times, making the ink disappear completely and leaving the corridor as clean as before.
"Nice nonverbal spell!" someone clapped and said.
Vid turned his head to look: "Griffiths?"
The red-haired wizard had once again slipped into someone else's portrait, smiling cheerfully with his hands behind his back as he followed Vid.
Thinking of Peeves' sudden appearance, Vid asked, "Did you put Peeves up to it?"
"Yes, indeed!" Griffiths admitted frankly and said, "You seemed like you were caught by some time monster, looking all deep and scary. So I asked Peeves to give you a little greeting—how about now? Feeling better?"
Vid wasn't sure what expression he had earlier. He rubbed his face helplessly and said, "Well, thank you very much!"
"You're welcome, you're welcome. Helping students is what I do," Griffiths said, beaming, and then asked, "What were you thinking about earlier?"
Vid didn't want to discuss the topic and asked, "Have you improved relations with the portraits in the entrance hall recently? They haven't tattled on you for a while now."
"Uh... um... yes, of course, they've gotten better..." Griffiths stammered.
Vid stopped walking, frowned, and asked, "You wouldn't have..."
"Haha, just now, there were two Hufflepuff students who wanted to hear my past stories! I'll be off now, chat with you next time!" Griffiths said, raising his voice like he was trying to hide something, then quickly drifted out of the portrait, off to who knows where.
Vid shook his head.
Recently, more and more students had come to know the chatty Griffiths because he always enjoyed talking to others, sometimes abruptly popping out of a portrait and shouting, watching startled students fall into stair traps and laughing heartily, earning the title of Peeves of the portraits.
However, students hated Peeves, but not Griffiths. Apart from occasionally harmless pranks, he would also tell stories of questionable truth, and if he saw a student in a low mood, he would try to comfort them and go to great lengths to make them smile.
Vid often saw four or five students gathered around Griffiths' portrait, chatting with him. Most of Griffiths' free time was taken up by students, leaving him too busy to bother other portraits much—
Vid originally thought so.
But seeing Griffiths' guilty manner just now, it seemed there were other stories.
Back in his dormitory, Vid took out the Friendship Book, first conversing with his father for a while, then switching to another page of the Friendship Book.
[Vid: Remus?]
Before long, a reply from Lupin appeared on the page:
[Lupin: I'm here.]
[Vid: I have something to ask you—tomorrow morning, please go to Gringotts with my father to withdraw some money, then head to Borgin and Burkes in Knockturn Alley to purchase the Disappearing Cabinet there.]
[Lupin: Alright.]
Lupin readily agreed. After a while, he wrote down new words:
[Lupin: But as far as I know, Borgin and Burkes has only one Disappearing Cabinet, the whereabouts of the other is unknown. If the other cabinet is damaged, or in a place inaccessible to humans—like under the sea or buried underground—it would render the cabinet useless, and could be extremely dangerous to use.]
[Vid: I know—but there's also a Disappearing Cabinet in Hogwarts Castle.]
[Vid: It's worth a try, right?]
[Lupin: Got it. But promise me, don't try it yourself, maybe we can test with a rabbit or something first.]
[Vid: Of course, I won't be that reckless.]
Putting away the Friendship Book, Vid felt a bit of anticipation.
The enemy could appear anytime within the safety of the fortress, making one feel utterly insecure; but if he could leave the castle at will, it would be marvelous, greatly expanding his options.
Vid's mind was swirling with many thoughts, and various changes in the plot—the Basilisk in the Chamber of Secrets, Peter Pettigrew hiding in Gryffindor, the Quidditch World Cup and the Goblet of Fire tournament, the jailbreaking Barty Crouch, Voldemort's resurrection, the incompetent Ministry of Magic...
And the Soul Artifacts that Voldemort had hidden in different places... and the ways to destroy the Soul Artifacts—
Gryffindor's Sword.
Basilisk fangs.
And Fiendfyre.
He still needed to learn the Fiendfyre Curse... thinking of Grindelwald setting half of Paris on fire, and Dumbledore conjuring a sea of flames like a Fire God Incarnation with a swing of his wand...
If he had the same power, would he need to be so cautious?
Vid wrote down his various thoughts on paper, watched for a while, and then rolled the paper into a ball and held it close to the candle flame, watching it burn into ashes.
The flickering light of the fire reflected in his pupils, and deep in his eyes, it seemed like another scene—Hogwarts being overwhelmed by the dark-hooded Death Eaters, Trolls and Acromantula rampaging, bodies lying haphazardly on the cold ground.
Under the fires of war, life was so fragile.
And all those events not played out in the story—after Dumbledore's death, both Hogwarts and the Ministry of Magic were almost occupied by the Dark Lord's followers, forcing the trio to go into hiding... during that short yet long year, how many non-Pure-Blood wizards were persecuted?
What about Muggles? And what about the overlooked Duds? Did they escape because of their insignificance, or were they, because of their insignificance, dismissed as just cold numbers in a newspaper if they were killed?
Ferdinand and Fiona's smiling faces suddenly flashed before Vid's eyes, then two other faces, blurred in memory, struggling to smile amidst sadness.
He covered his eyes with his hand and sighed wearily.